


i'm looking through you

by marinersapptcomplex



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Abstract, Depression, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mental Health Issues, One-Sided Attraction, Unrequited Love, Yikes, alex is the big sad, me writing the word mate over one hundred times, sad as hell lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-21 21:46:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17650475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marinersapptcomplex/pseuds/marinersapptcomplex
Summary: Alex feels, quite suddenly, alone.





	i'm looking through you

**Author's Note:**

> canny believe i broke my writer's block to write all this but hey ho it is what it is lol

 

 

 

_He remembers those vanished years._

_As though looking through a dusty window pane,_

_the past is something he could see, but not touch._

_And everything he sees is blurred and indistinct._

— In the Mood for Love

 

 

“You don’t remember?”

Alex shakes his head no.

“None of it?” James says. “Not even… Not even when I found you?”

Alex puts his hands together, interlocks his fingers, tries to keep them from trembling again. James is waiting for an answer that Alex can’t give, so he just says nothing for a little while.

“Jesus, Alex.” James says, breathless and hoarse. “Why didn’t you say something? To anyone. We… I could’ve helped.”

A feeling seems to hang in the air. Some sort of sudden spell, thick and heavy, clouded by longing. James feels it, Alex too. A strange, certain desperation pushing and pulling invisible forces between them.

“I don’t know,” he says back. “It all just got too much too fast, and all I could do was… This.”

He almost gestures to his gauze-padded wrists but stops himself. It’s not like James doesn’t know, in fact (according to the nurse), he was the first person to see, the first person that came barging through the locked bathroom doors and saw Alex bleeding on the floor. So it shouldn’t upset him to think of James looking down at his scars. But, it does.

James is looking away, out of the window, trying to make the tears go away. His mum always told him to look at a bright light whenever he felt like crying. But even the ugly bleached lights in here can’t force the water out of his eyes.

Alex doesn’t know what to say, do. So he ends up blurting, “Sorry.”

James, wiping his eyes: “Mate, you don’t have to be sorry.”

“Yeah, I do.” Alex shrugs, bites the dead skin on his blue lips. “I shouldn’t have done it, you know, I shouldn’t have worried you lot so much… And now George and Will have had to cancel their trip to New York just because of me. So, yeah, I do have to be sorry.”

“If anyone should be sorry, it’s me.”

Alex almost laughs, almost cries, almost screams. “What? Why?”

“Because I should’ve known. I saw the signs, I just didn’t say anything.” James puts his head in his hands for a moment, takes a breath, sees darkness at the very back of his mind. “God, Alex, mate, I’m so fucking sorry.”

Somehow seeing James break down hurts more than death. Feels wrong. Alex tries to get up from the bed but James’ hand is on his shoulder, gently pushing down, reminding him of all other times he’s acted like the only bloody safety harness in his life.

“James, look, look at me. I’m fine, see?”

“No, you’re not.” Alex tries to get up again, but James won’t let him, even through all the tears he’s still trying his best to act a good friend.

“I am! I’m fine, this whole thing was so stupid,” Alex can feel his voice wobbling, but he needs to get the words out, needs to tell him he’s okay. “I was just hurting, and I didn’t think things through, but look, James! I’m not hurting anymore, I’m fine. I’m fine, really!”

“You’re not bloody fine, Alex.” James tells him, blinking tears. “Why won’t you just let me help you?”

_I don’t know_ , he almost says aloud. _I would if I knew there was something worth helping._

 

\--

 

The day Alex gets discharged, James drives him home in the car, speakers playing his favourite music and the back-seat full of tacky balloons. He’s trying his best, and Alex appreciates it, appreciates it more than James will ever really know.

And, straight through the front door to see Will and George anxiously waiting at the table, looking pale-faced and nervous, like they’re about to meet a long-lost twin. They hug him for a long while, arms all lanky and awkward, not sure what to say. Nonetheless, Alex is grateful, he really is.

After that, Alex goes back to his bedroom and starts unpacking his hospital bag. His room’s been cleaned, the sheets crisp and duvet straightened out like a stock photo from a hotel pamphlet. It’s weird, he’s not sure he likes it.

Will knocks on his door, drops off a pair of grey adidas socks, and says, “I think these belong to you, mate. They ended up in my wash.”

Alex stands still for a minute, aimless. Tries to speak normally but can’t. Will moves toward him, careful, as if scared to approach, stupid socks clutched tightly in his hand.

“They not yours? Could’ve sworn they were.”

Again, Alex says nothing. Can’t. Will’s brows are furrowing, he’s confused, not sure what to say or do. So, Alex just carefully takes the socks from Will’s hands, looks at them, and starts crying.

“Oh.” Will says at first, backing off, almost frightened. “Oh, mate.”

Alex paws at his wet face with the sleeve of his jumper. “God, I’m all over the fucking place.”

Wills face softens, he moves closer, takes the socks back from Alex. “Didn’t know a pair of socks would get you so upset.”

Alex laughs through his tears, almost grinning, feeling the slightest bit better. “Oh, shut up.”

Then, Will pulls Alex in for another hug, but this one is less awkward, less forced. It feels right, feels just like how things used to be. This hug hurts in all the right ways, and for the first time in a long time Alex is happy to just exist.

\--

They drink. Alex drinks way more than the James. Drinks enough to sedate an elephant and knock it out for two days, and yet doesn’t seem to be at all pacified by the alcohol.

He’s loud and outrageous and speaking too fast for anyone to catch the words.

“Maybe cool it on the drinks, yeah?” James says, slurring a little, still concerned through the veil of drunkenness.

“It’s just a few drinks,” Alex says, slurring too. “What’s it matter to you?”

James looks hurt suddenly, his eyes shrink up, staring back into his empty glass. Alex doesn’t know what to say for some reason, could be the alcohol, but it’s never stopped him before.

“What? What have I said now?”

“I just worry about you, mate.” James’ eyes drift to Alex’ sleeved wrists without realising.

Alex feels his stomach drop ten stories. He puts his glass down on the table opposite them.

“You don’t have to worry about me.” He tells James. “I’m better now, remember?”

James tries to smile, “Yeah, but, that’s not how it works, Alex.”

Alex tucks his knees under his chin, rests his head there, thinks. James looks at him, puts his hand on his shoulder, just like first time he visited in the hospital.

“I just don’t want anything bad to happen to you.” James’ voice ebbs softly, dissipates like smoke in the air. So gentle, so gentle. “I don’t know what I’d do if you tried to hurt yourself again.”

“But I’m not going to, I’m not going to hurt myself like that ever again.” Alex looks back over at James. “I’m fine now.”

“Are you? Really?”

Alex shrugs, all kiddish and weird. He feels suddenly neon in the low light of the room. A voice in the back of his head utters something horrible and wicked, Alex drowns it out, like he always does. Like he’s always been doing.

“Sometimes I think you’re holding back,” James looks just as scared as Alex. “Sometimes I think you’d rather die than tell any of us that you’re not okay.”

“Well, what’s it matter anyway, mate.” He brings his hand up to his mouth, biting down on a loose hangnail and tasting blood. “Not like I’m gonna come running to you lot every single time I feel like killing myself.”

“Don’t put it like that.” He says back, hurt.

Alex hears his voice turn in a way he’s never heard before.

“What? Can’t handle the truth?” Alex gives him a flat look. “No wonder I’m bloody holding back from telling you this shit.”

He turns back to face James, expecting the worst. They lock eyes. Not a smile or a frown or a look but something else. Shared. A wave of dejection falling over both of them.

“It’s okay to be angry.” James voice comes like smoke again, all perfect and familiar, like filtered light on Alex’s skin.

Alex is quiet a moment. Drunk and confused, with James’ hand on his upper arm, pressing cold into warm skin. His breath bright with vodka and cranberry juice, restless and scarred, trying to make sense of anything and everything.

He presses his mouth to James. He holds James’ face with his phantom-like hands and tries to melt himself into James, tries to become one, tries to make himself disappear.

_If I could give you everything_ , he thinks, _If I could lock all the bad parts away and become one with you I would I would I would_.

James says nothing, except, “I can’t,” against Alex’s face, trying to pull away. But Alex doesn’t stop, just keeps grabbing at him, won’t even stop when there are tears in his eyes again and he can taste them against James’ lips.

James pulls back finally, breathes through his mouth, steadies Alex’s hands with his, and says, “It’s okay it’s okay it’s okay.”

 

\--

 

Nothing comes of the kiss. Time ebbs and flows like water pouring endlessly. James eventually moves in, still looks at Alex in the same heart-breaking way. Still spends nights awake worrying. And Alex seems to stay the same throughout it all. Never once changing, trying to heal, watching his friends look through him with a blank expression on their faces.

James comes across a crumpled piece of paper in Alex’s bedroom. Picks it up, looks, reads: _Does anyone ever die in England? What I mean by that is, will I ever die here?_

He pretends he hasn’t seen it, puts it back in the same place, makes sure to fold it all up in the exact same way and leave it alone. Alex walks in and finds James crouching on the floor.

“What’re you doing?”

“Nothing,” James stands up, dizzying. “Just thought I left my hoodie in here, is all.”

“Right,” Alex says, then flops onto his bed and pulls his blanket up to his head, sighing. “That doesn’t sound suspicious.”

James walks out, closing the door behind him. He tries to breathe, he tries to stop his hands from shaking. If James had taken the paper, held it up to Alex’s face and asked him what was wrong, maybe then Alex would finally come clean. Maybe then. 

 

\--

 

They’re watching some documentary about The Beatles on late night television. Alex is tired out of his mind, James has just got back from the pub, and Will is sitting on the floor, cross-legged like a kid.

No one but James is really watching, he’s observing from the hallway, one shoe on and the stink of booze on his brand new jacket. He comes and perches next to Alex, eyes glowing bright with the light from the tv, almost fixated.

A picture of John Lennon flashes up on the screen. James smiles, then without even turning, says, “Did you know Lennon didn’t even like his voice?”

Alex perks up, he stares back at James, somehow warmed by that, then quirks a brow. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” James smiles at the tv, then at Alex. “Used to tell his producer to cover his vocal parts up on a lot of the albums.”

“Weird.” Will adds from the other side of the room, phone in his hand, not paying attention.

James and Alex meet eyes, laugh, then look back at the tv screen. There’s a long beat before Alex relaxes next to James, and almost lets his hand touch his.

“You know something,” Alex begins. “I never really got into them, The Beatles.”

“I’ve got all their stuff on CD, you know.” James leans into Alex, smiles, ever so softly.

“Yeah?”

Later that night, James treads into Alex’s room with an armful of CD’s stacked up to his chin, unpacks them all and spreads them out on his floor. Alex watches him read the album covers like a pack of tarot cards, eyes bright and unreadable.

Before Alex got ill, he once fell asleep in James’ bed and dreamt of an orange-tinted world in which the air was bruised and he was drowning in the South Pacific. Then he got bad, and the dreams disappeared, and James’ bed with it.

From his CD player: _I'm looking through you, where did you go? I thought I knew you, what did I know._

 

\--

 

He’s hyper-aware. Every breeze, every buzz, every flap of wings. It hurts him. The water on the pond bubbles with light, he stands motionless, silent.

James turns first, hands delicate and scarce as always, as Alex has always remembered. Alex does not look back.

“You alright?”

Alex stares back at the pond, both their faces wavering on the moving water, reflectionless strangers.

“I’m fine.” He says back.

“Don’t think I’ve ever seen you in a park before,” James smiles, tracing a circle in the mud with his shoe. “You sure you’re alright?”

“Yes,” he says. “I’m fine.”

A dragonfly surfaces, settling its wings on a lily-pad, gleaming. The world stops still, momentarily, not soft or warm, as Alex had always seen it but, instead, colourless. Colourless.

 

\--

 

He stays awake, thinking. His lips sting where James’ once were. He aches.

McCartney, singing, _love has a nasty habit of disappearing overnight._

 

\--

Alex has his meds out on the table, James is next to him, watching too. They’re not sure how they got here. The sun, like an egg-yolk in the sky, so terribly yellow it seems to hurt both their sleepy eyes, even through the frosted glass of their tenth story window.

It’s too hot for February. Alex’s skin on the back of his neck stings with the scent of sunscreen and sweat. James is delirious in the heat, bleached with the light, eyes half-lidded, looking crazy.

“You have to take all of them?” James points at the tin-foil packets of tablets on the coffee table, some strewn out, some abandoned on the carpet floor.

Alex hums, tears a little white pill out of its foil packaging, places it on the back of his tongue before grabbing the lukewarm bottle of water out of James’ hands.

“How long for?”

“Until I’m better, I guess.”

“What if you don’t get better?”

“Then,” Alex says, looking at the sun. “I don’t know.”

James sighs, itches at his stubble, reaches back for the water bottle. Stills his hand on Alex’s knee. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way, mate.”

“S’Alright.”

“Okay.” James replies, not knowing what else to say.

Something hurts inside Alex’s ribs. His mouth is dry, warm, tasting of chalk. He goes to move James’ hand off his knee, but some other voice inside his body tells him no. James’ touch, although familiar, is bruising and feels wrong.

Alex settles his hand over James’. His chest swells. The dull glaze of the sun seems to settle like dust over their bodies. James says nothing for a long time, just sits there, breath tucked into his ribs like a pair of wings.

Neither move, too scared to rupture this perfect point of safety.

Alex waits. James’ mouth forms the shape of his name, yet no sound follows. Just a quiet sigh and strange choked cough from his throat. He looks lost, unsure.

Alex moves away, takes all the tin-foil packets and stuffs them into his pockets, sulks off into his room. James lingers by the sofa, like the flame of a candle, snuffed out.

 

\--

 

James dreams of space, in all its vast glory and emptiness. Dreams of reaching the edge of the universe and falling into a dust bowl of nothingness. The sound of his heartbeat, so tender and flighty, occupying the loneliest parts of his mind.

He wakes to the sound of screaming. Sits up, bolt-right, knowing the worst.

 

\--

 

Alex, in a garden, sitting straight-backed and alone. James approaches, footsteps quiet and ghostly, trying not to make a noise.

“Hi.” Alex says, not looking.

“Hi.” James says back, sitting down next to him, staring back at the water fountain across from the both of them. “How’re you feeling?”

Alex smiles, shrugs, tries to make the best of it.

“The food here any good?”

“Nah,” Alex shakes his head. “Not really. Tastes like ash.”

“Ash?”

“Yeah,” he sounds so far away, as if not even there. “I read somewhere that food tastes like ash when you’re depressed… So I guess it makes sense.”

It’s quiet now. Quieter than it’s ever been between the two of them. Usually, there’s a spark, some hint of life. But now there’s just nothing, nothing, just the sound of two breathing bodies. A void.

“You’re real, right?” Alex’s voice comes out as a whisper, too afraid to break the silence.

James has to look away, tell himself he won’t cry this time. Then, he replies, “Yeah, I’m real, mate.”

“Cool. Good.” Alex shakes his head a second time, laughing to himself. “Just making sure, y’know.”

He feels sick, stupid. Stuck in bloody limbo.

“I read the note you left,” James turns. “It was… Sad.”

Alex tries to laugh again. “Well, yeah. I think they’re meant to be.”

James is not laughing with him. Alex’s stomach drops, twists, hurts. He tries to remind himself that he’s already cried in front of James at least two times now, and he would not like to make this a third.

“I thought I was helping,” James says, finally. “I thought I was making you better, but turns out I was just hurting you more.”

Silence falls over them again, suffocating and all consuming. Alex’s mind whites out momentarily, gone, somewhere else. He searches for ways of fixing this and comes up with nothing.

His voice breaks. “You weren’t hurting me, James. You could never hurt me.”

“But I was.” James reaches out for Alex’s shoulder again, but he pulls away, sharp, cold. “It was me, doing this to you, tormenting you.”

“No! James, stop it, stop this! You’re being fucking stupid.” He goes to cover his face with his hands. “Just stop it! Seriously, stop it.”

James pulls his hand away, pockets it. Goes silent, again. “I’m sorry, Alex. Really.”

“Just… Please, stop saying that. It’s not your fault, it was never your fault.” He sniffles, red-faced.

The sun shines its brightest down on Alex, blinding his watery eyes just for a second. He looks back at James, gaze cold and unfamiliar.

James says, unmoving, “You needed help. You needed more than me. And I couldn’t give you that.”

Alex feels, quite suddenly, alone. He cries, loud, buries his face in his hands. Shakes. Convulses. Finds no time for shame anymore. James settles his hand down on his shoulder again, slow, careful.

“Why does it feel like you’re saying goodbye?” Alex looks through his straggled hair, cheeks soaked, voice wrecked.

“I’m not saying goodbye.” James soothes.

“Then why’re you saying this stuff?” He curls in on himself, small. “Why does this feel like a fucking funeral?”

_Maybe it is_ , James thinks. _Maybe this is a final goodbye to all the times before._ He feels the sting of tears in his eyes, puts his hand back in his lap and allows Alex a moment to breathe, without him. Without him.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He says, softer with each breath. “I’m sorry I can’t love you that way.”

Alex looks past James, as if sensing another presence. The sun, still endlessly orange and bright, bathes the two of them in a strange warmth. Senses dulled, strangers in a foreign land.

James had once heard that grief was a poison. Heard that he who conceals his grief finds no remedy for it. In the cold rays of the sun, James silently agreed.

 

\--

 

There are nights in bed, when Alex can still not sleep, where he imagines all the things that James would say now.

_You were right_ , he says. _It was a goodbye._

I know, Alex replies, I’ve known forever.

_I do miss you._

Alex, even in his dream body, shivers, says again, _I know, I’ve known forever._

Then, he closes his eyes, breathes, and falls back asleep.

 

\--

-


End file.
